by Funa
“No offing anyone. I’ll try to think of something, so keep cool for now.”
“...Got it.”
After being led into the guardhouse and offered to take a seat, the guard brought out wooden cups filled with wine for everyone. Usually a dinky little guardhouse like this should only have some lukewarm water at best, so they probably had this ready beforehand on the chance that I happened to come this way. I didn’t want to let it go to waste, so I made sure to at least take a sip.
Yeah, that’s lukewarm red wine all right... Room temperature would probably be more accurate. If anyone in Japan proudly served you a glass of room temperature wine, though, it’d be pretty hard to be happy about, and the same went for here. Their “room temperature” was actually pretty dang warm, but as they didn’t really have a way to keep it chilled here, I wasn’t going to complain.
“So...what seems to be the problem?”
“Oh, no problems here. I received orders from the king to give you a warm welcome should you enter our kingdom, and to have you escorted to the royal palace immediately,” the man explained. It appeared he was no ordinary guard, but a slightly higher-ranking soldier posted here to lead me to the palace.
“What makes you think I’m Kaoru?”
“All the higher-ranking soldiers of our country were present to see you during the proceedings in Balmore and committed your appearance to memory. Our regular soldiers merely memorized what you look like after studying all manner of portraits of you.”
Gyahhh!!! What the hell is that about?! So you’re not gonna just let me go, is that it?! Just how tenacious are you, man?! Are you a stalker or something?!
I was planning on playing dumb, but it looked like he was certain I was the Kaoru they were looking for. He was probably going to argue back if I denied it now, so my only choice was to give up and admit it. If I tried denying it and things got heated, my “big brother” Roland, his fiancée Francette, and my other “brother” Emile might try slicing and dicing their way out of this—especially when it came to Francette. Things could get dicey real fast...literally.
By the way, here was our current story: Roland was the oldest son of the family and engaged to Francette, while Emile was the second oldest and had Belle as his fiancée. I was the oldest daughter of our makeshift family, of course.
I could have made us all brothers and sisters, but that would have been plain weird to have the two couples flirting with each other when they were supposed to be related by blood. I didn’t want any rumors floating around about us, so that was why I went with the current setup instead. I wanted to avoid rumors of brother and sister complexes among our group, thank you very much.
Still, no matter how you sliced it, Roland looked like royalty, while Emile looked like the most common commoner you’d ever lay your eyes on. I was planning on explaining it away by saying Emile was the illegitimate child our father had with a maid who was raised like a commoner, but I was pretty sure it wouldn’t really come up. It’d take a fairly reckless person to pry into a noble’s family affairs.
Anyway, our story was that Roland wanted to take a trip to another country while he was still young, and his brother-from-another-mother Emile was there to accompany him, as well as their two fiancées. I was here as the chaperone to watch over the two couples.
Based on my smooth skin and the other decidedly not-commoner-like features about me, I was planning on saying I was the sheltered daughter of some lower-ranking aristocrat who was unwise to the ways of the world. That would also make it seem more natural for everyone to prioritize protecting me without raising any suspicions.
...What, you think that’s pushing it? Look, don’t worry about it. This is the kind of situation where they’d think we’d actually tell a more believable lie if we wanted to fool them, and that’ll actually make our story even more credible! Sheesh, get off my back...
Oh yeah, I wasn’t calling Roland “sir” or anything on this trip, either. I know he’s the brother of a king, but he was the one who decided to tag along with me. I was just going to treat him like another one of my traveling companions. It’d be a pain in the butt to give him special treatment when everyone else was supposed to be acting more casual around each other. If we kept calling him “sir” all the time, people were bound to find out something was up eventually, though I made sure to ask him if it was all right first.
...Not like he could really say no to me, though.
“We’ve finished preparing a carriage for you, so if you will just follow me this way...”
The guard made to lead us somewhere, but I casually brushed him off.
“Oh, no thanks. Ed and the others would get jealous if we rode something being pulled by other horses!”
“Huh...?”
“I guess we’ll be off now!” I stood up from my seat, and the other four followed suit.
“W-Wait! Hold on a second, please!”
We ignored the panicking soldier as we left the guardhouse. We hopped on our horses once we were outside and set off once more. We’d already made sure to talk things over, with me declining his offer to be taken anywhere by carriage. Now they shouldn’t be able to say we tried illegally forcing our way across the border.
The checkpoint was in complete chaos because of this as we left it behind us.
“I wonder if that guy sent a messenger on ahead?” I yelled to Roland over the sound of galloping horses.
“Yeah, I bet they already took off a while ago!”
“Then how about we give them the slip?”
“Let’s do it!”
I figured the soldier from before would come chasing after us, the carriage he prepared for me included. But that would never be able to catch up with us, so it didn’t really matter. We’d make it to the capital before the messenger arrived, finish what we needed to do, and get out of there before they could do anything about it. For that to happen, though, we’d need about a twelve-hour head start. If we could just make it through the capital and speed along faster than their messenger horses, then no one would be able to keep up with us. Not only did we have Ed’s family, but horses specially bred to be used by royalty. I even had healing potions. No problems there.
“Hi ho, Silver!” I shouted, trying to set the mood a little.
Ed got mad at me.
“You’re using that name again! Just what kind of horse are you cheating on me with, missy?!”
...Sorry.
It didn’t take long for us to overtake someone we assumed to be a messenger, but it wasn’t like we weren’t expecting that. It was going to take them a good few days to reach the capital, so they had to keep to a certain pace to get there. They couldn’t just keep pushing their horse as hard as they could, or else they’d just run it into the ground. It was possible they could’ve prepared other replacement horses to switch out every few hours or so, but that probably wasn’t the case. They didn’t know where I’d be coming from in the first place, and they also thought I’d be slowly trundling along in the carriage they prepared for me by now.
The messenger stared at us in blank amazement as we passed him by. If he tried chasing after us now, his horse definitely wasn’t going to make it without collapsing at some point. Thinking about it from his side, he might be in shock that it seemed like we were the ones reckless enough to push our horses this hard. No matter what happened, I doubted a common soldier would have enough cash on him to buy replacement horses he wasn’t planning on getting in the first place. All he could do was focus on trying to reach the capital as fast as he could within his own means. He was most likely thinking we couldn’t possibly keep up this pace, either, and he’d be passing our exhausted horses in no time. He didn’t once think this gap between us would keep getting wider as we got closer to the capital...
It had gotten dark, so we started getting ready to set up camp. All I had to do was take out our tent, which was already put together, from my Item Box, so it was over in an instant. We were traveling light since we only pac
ked the essentials, and we could keep pushing on until it was too dark to press onward since it took no time for us to get our camp gear ready. The messenger, on the other hand, would have to stop at a town to take care of his horse and rest for the night, which meant the distance between us was only going to get larger.
Horses needed so much water and care, so pushing them to the brink and leaving them outside to set up camp was nigh impossible—if you didn’t have cheat powers, that is. At this rate, keeping our twelve-hour lead should be a piece of cake, and I wanted to put that time to use when we were in the capital.
At first, I was just planning on being as stealthy as possible getting into Aras, so I hadn’t really been concerned with a time limit. I’d sneak in then sneak back out. Easy. But now that we were racing against the messenger before he could tell the country I’d arrived, my plans had changed to charging through as fast as possible.
Ed and the others were practically jumping for joy at all the feed, apples, corn, sugar cubes, and potions I gave them, but then I received this comment:
“Excuse me, Kaoru? Could you not give my daughter so many sugar cubes, hm?”
Now Ed’s old mare was getting mad at me...
Leaving the messenger in our dust long ago, we finally arrived in Aras, the capital of Brancott.
There were plenty of people who knew me from back when I lived and worked here as a waitress, but even if we ran into them, it still wouldn’t be a problem in the slightest.
If we ran into someone who knew I was the friend of the Goddess, though, that was when I’d be in trouble. There were people who happened to catch a glimpse of me during the peace talks in Balmore and, according to that guard at the border, there were plenty of other soldiers who’d been ordered to memorize what I looked like. That was why I decided to go ahead and change my hair and eye color again and have everyone surround me so I wouldn’t stand out as much. Despite that, no one in my party so much as batted an eye at my sudden transformation. To them, I wasn’t the “friend of the Goddess” everyone else knew me as, but a goddess from another world.
There was only one place I wanted to go here in the capital. After hitching Ed and the other horses up, I used another potion to change my hair and eye color before opening up the doors.
“Hey everyone, long time no see!”
“““K-Kaoru!!!”””
That’s right, I was back at the Big Belly Bistro, the restaurant I once worked at as a waitress and ran my own counseling service.
“K-K-Kaoru!” The landlord came running out of the kitchen after hearing everyone call my name, throwing her arms around me and squeezing tight.
I-I can’t breathe!
“You were okay after all! We were all so worried for you when we heard you disappeared after people saw you were hurt! It must’ve been so hard for you...and you haven’t even grown one bit since then.”
Oof... Hitting me right where it hurts...
“Kaoru!”
The next person to come running over to give me a big hug was Aimee.
...You’re still working here? Shouldn’t it be about time for you to move on, girl?
“Thank goodness... Thank goodness!” she cried repeatedly, tears of joy streaming down her face.
“H-Hey, where’s Agathe?”
“She went off and got married to one of our merchant regulars!” Aimee pouted. “He only had a tiny business at first, but the moment he married Agathe, it suddenly took off. Now her new father-in-law takes to calling her ‘the gift of the Goddess.’ She even went on to have two beautiful baby boys! She couldn’t get any happier if she tried, tch!”
Ah... I know how you feel, Aimee! I know that feeling so much it hurts!
As I stewed in my feelings of simultaneous empathy and jealousy, the door to the restaurant suddenly flew open.
“Kaoru!”
Speak of the devil, Agathe came running inside, tears welling up in her eyes. It seemed like one of the customers had the good sense to let her know I was here. Apparently, her new family basically lived next door.
She may be a mother of two children, but she’ll always be the cute little Agathe I remember working alongside as a fellow waitress. That said, she was a married woman, so I almost felt like I should be adding a “Mrs.” in front of her name or something.
“Kaoru, I heard about your injuries! Are you all fixed now?!”
“Oh, yeah. I got to take a swig of this amazing medicine, the tears of the goddess, and that patched me up good as new.”
“Th-Thank goodness... I tried putting all the things you told us about into practice at my husband’s company after I got married! When I did, we got a huge surge of customers, and our business really took off! Even now, the trade guild still calls me things like ‘the ideal wife for a businessman,’ and I have all this influence at the gatherings between all the merchants wives, and... Oh, you know what, never mind.”
Yeah, I kinda figured that’s what happened. Agathe and Aimee had overheard the advice I gave customers when I ran my consultation service, and I made sure to tell them the essentials of the Japanese service industry on our breaks and stuff. They both should have had an even playing field since they learned the same things from me, but I wonder how Aimee and Agathe’s situations ended up so different? It was a mystery...
Afterward, I introduced Roland and the others as my traveling companions. I had a great time chatting with the restaurant staff and the regular customers here.
Fran had left to find us an inn sometime in the middle of it all, so that meant I had a free pass to smashed-ville, population me.
...Or that’s what I thought, but they wouldn’t let me have alcohol, saying kids drinking booze “was a bad thing.” I already looked like this four and a half years ago, people! I was way over fifteen now, which meant I was a proper adult!
Everyone pretended to act surprised, but they just ended up handing me juice anyway.
Damn it... Really, guys?
Roland and the others only sipped on their tea, saying they weren’t foolish enough to drink alcohol smack dab in the center of enemy territory.
Oh yeah, I guess this is “enemy territory” for them.
After that, we all had a good time reminiscing about the old days. It was a ton of fun for me, but all good things had to come to an end. Not coming home at a decent hour just spelled the start of family troubles.
Should you really be here instead of with your new family, Agathe? Well, I suppose she is the head of her family hierarchy, so she’s probably fine...
I made sure to ask everyone a favor as the festivities wrapped up.
“Hey, all, can I ask you to do something for me? I want you to not think of me as the Kaoru from four-and-a-half years ago, but her older sister who just happened to stop by and see the restaurant that had been so kind to her. Otherwise, those people who chased me away in the first place are just going to catch on and come after me...”
Everyone agreed, of course. Even if one of them messed up and let it slip, the others would step in and play it off by saying something like, “What, you couldn’t tell the difference? I know they looked alike, but weren’t you listening to what she said?”
Someone suggested that I call myself the younger sister since my looks hadn’t changed at all from the last time I was here, but I’d already told the prince before that the older one was living here in Aras.
Crap... I messed up on that one.
When I woke up, I found myself in one of the capital’s inns. I hadn’t actually gotten around to drinking last night, but I did get pretty wiped out from all the partying we did.
It had been a long time since I had a good night’s sleep in a proper inn bed. After we figured out our sleeping arrangements for the night, Fran took Ed and the other horses to the stables to make sure they were taken care of. They must have picked up on what she was trying to do and just followed after her. Not gonna lie, that was pretty dang convenient. I was sure it must have been a little shocking to anyone w
ho saw Fran leading that train of five horses without her doing anything herself...
I was the last one up, apparently, since everyone had already washed their faces and got dressed. C’mon, at least wake me up, guys! And why was everyone all gathered around me staring at me while I was asleep?! You all like to ogle a girl’s face while she’s sleeping, is that it?!
But whatever. We all slept huddled together when we were camping, so they’d already seen what I looked like when I was asleep... Still didn’t mean I liked what was going on here, though. I ain’t putting on a show, people! I’m gonna start charging if you wanna look that bad!
...The scary part was, I feel like they’d actually be happy to pay for that show.
After finishing up breakfast, we were on our way again. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary around the inn, so it looked like the messenger still hadn’t arrived yet. I guessed even the messenger must have turned in for the night. Traveling by starlight wasn’t only exhausting, but inefficient as well. Getting a good night’s sleep and getting yourself ready for the next day was far and away the more effective choice, which meant we shouldn’t have lost any of our lead. The gap between us should still be about the same. That meant we didn’t really have to force ourselves to go faster than we already were.
Considering our group and the fact that I had potions to hand out, we were leagues faster than a messenger who didn’t have any replacement horses to get him to the capital efficiently. After we got out of this country, we could camp outside less and begin spending the night at inns more often. We could even stick around in places longer to give this a more “road trip” feel to our journey.
Dang, I’m starting to get excited about this! All right, time to get out of here!